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[TamilNet, Monday, 26 December 2005, 13:27 GMT]
"A critical question looming large in Tamil Peoples' mind is how the International Community is going to express its reaction to the Government of Sri Lanka on the slaying of the senior Tamil democratic leader, Mr. Joseph Pararajasingham," Jaffna daily Uthayan said in its editorial Monday. The paper described the slaying of Joseph Pararajasigham as an attempt to "throttle the voice of Tamil Nationalism."
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[TamilNet, Saturday, 26 November 2005, 08:31 GMT]
 Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse’s first address to his Parliament had been keenly, albeit warily, anticipated by those concerned about the peace process. Elected on a hardline nationalist platform (and having easily drawn the majority of Sinhala votes), Rajapakse’s speech curiously received the press coverage of a pro-peace candidate: that he wanted to hold "direct" talks with the Liberation Tigers. But peace advocates paying close attention to his policy statement would have been thoroughly alarmed.
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[TamilNet, Saturday, 26 November 2005, 01:33 GMT]
 The definition "supreme authority within a territory," captures the essential notion of sovereignty used to describe political authority of modern nation states. The origins of Sri Lanka’s long festering conflict lie in its unitary constitution which vests the exercise of sovereignty solely in the hands of Sinhala Buddhists. But Colombo wields no sovereign authority over nearly seventy percent of the island’s NorthEast. Radical Sinhala groups view the denial of their state’s sovereignty in areas controlled by the Liberation Tigers with extreme chagrin. Over the years, other events too have challenged Sri Lanka’s sovereignty.
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[TamilNet, Friday, 25 November 2005, 01:02 GMT]
 On the 3 December 1989 issue of Sri Lanka's English daily, Island International, late Dharmeratnam Sivaram, popular journalist and Senior editor at TamilNet, writes on LTTE's ascendency after the collapse of the Indo-Lanka accord. Beginning of withdrawal of Indian troops, JVP insurrection in the South that made Sri Lanka a killing field, and the start of Premadasa-LTTE talks provide the political context to the article.
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[TamilNet, Tuesday, 22 November 2005, 02:21 GMT]
 Predicting that if parliamentary elections were held and the LTTE encouraged Tamils to vote, the United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) will likely lose the elections, and the United National Party (UNP) wll be able to form a coalition government with the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) and the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), Robert C Oberst, Professor of Political Science at Nebraska Wesleyan University says Sri Lanka remains a divided nation, divided, not only between the Tamils, Sinhalese and Muslims, but also divided among the Sinhalese. He adds that renegade LTTE commander, Mr. Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan (Karuna), is the biggest loser in the elections.
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[TamilNet, Sunday, 20 November 2005, 00:12 GMT]
 World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) sponsored by the United Nations for expanding Internet access around the world held in Tunisia between 16 to 18 November 2005 ended Friday with resolutions to narrow the digital divide and to increase access to children in the third world. Few committed funding for this ambitious vision. Questions related to continued control of the Internet by US-based private sector non-profit entity ICANN (Internet corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) dominated the pre-conference discussions.
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[TamilNet, Wednesday, 16 November 2005, 12:55 GMT]
 Reports from Jaffna reveal intimidating and underhand activities of the Eelam People Democratic Party (EPDP) cadres in organising vote-rigging in Sri Lanka Presidential election. Groups of armed EPDP cadres were seen visiting house to house forcibly collecting the 'ballot-tokens' from residents in islets off Jaffna peninsula, TamilNet learns. With armed protection from the State armed forces, Douglas Devananda's EPDP is holding unannounced short-meetings at market places and actively campaigning for Mahinda Rajapakse, the candidate of the ruling party.
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[TamilNet, Monday, 14 November 2005, 03:33 GMT]
 In the 10th June 1992 issue of Sri Lanka's English daily, Island International, late Dharmeratnam Sivaram, popular journalist and Senior editor at TamilNet, sheds light into the then Sri Lanka's President Premadasa and Leader of the House, Ranil Wickremesinghe's strategy of dealing with Tamil national question, a strategy of wooing Tamil votes with political rhetoric and to inflict military defeat on LTTE by planning to allow Sri Lanka forces to "smash their way into Jaffna."
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[TamilNet, Tuesday, 08 November 2005, 00:18 GMT]
 Sri Lanka’s opposition United National Party this week claimed credit for engineering a split within the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) through the peace process whilst at the same time keeping the movement locked in via an international security net. The UNP also claimed credit for the sinking of LTTE vessels during the peace talks.
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[TamilNet, Friday, 04 November 2005, 12:53 GMT]
Commenting on the lack of enthusiasm amongst Sri Lanka’s Tamils for the forthcoming Presidential elections, the Tamil Guardian newspaper this week argued that the two leading contenders are, from a Tamil perspective, indistinguishable. “Advocates of peace alarmed by [Mahinda] Rajapakse’s unabashed Sinhala nationalism have rushed to pin their hopes on [Ranil] Wickremesinghe without seriously examining his policies and, above all, the practicality of his strategy,” the Diaspora broadsheet said.
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[TamilNet, Monday, 31 October 2005, 04:41 GMT]
 In the 31st July 1991 issue of Sri Lanka's English daily, Island International, popular journalist and military analyst, late Dharmeratnam Sivaram, portrays the 1991 battle of Elephant Pass as demonatrating the LTTE's capability as a conventional army and predicts how this emergent force will dictate the trajectory of Sri Lanka's war.
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[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 October 2005, 08:48 GMT]
 Transformation of the Sri Lankan democracy into one that is capable of handling conflicts is essential in addition to the political transformation of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam for Sri Lanka to resolve its pressing ethnic struggle, notes Kristian Stokke, a Professor of Human Geography at the Department of Sociology and Human Geography at the University of Oslo, Norway. Pointing to the post-tsunami period which has witnessed divisive politicization of both peace and development due to the intra-elite fragmentation and rivalry in Sri Lankan polity, Prof Stokke argues that international community can only act as an enabler to stimulate the needed transformation.
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[TamilNet, Thursday, 06 October 2005, 00:16 GMT]
 Are leaders of Sinhala community prepared to share state power with Tamils? Mr. V. Navaratnam, the only surviving founder member of the Federal Party that provided political leadership to Tamils for more than three decades since it was formed in 1949, and described as the brain behind FP, shared with TamilNet his views on Tamil National struggle. The doyen of Tamil politics who negotiated with the father of the incumbent President Chandrika Kumaratunge and other Sri Lanka leaders for sharing state power within a federal framework for almost three decades turns 96-years this month in Montreal, Canada. He also inked the Bandaranaiyake Chelvanayagam pact.
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[TamilNet, Tuesday, 04 October 2005, 02:54 GMT]
 The European Union’s (EU’s) announcement that it "will not receive members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in its member states until further notice," and is considering formally listing the LTTE as a terrorist organization has raised both controversy and questions over whether the move will aid or hurt the island’s stalled peace process.
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[TamilNet, Thursday, 29 September 2005, 09:18 GMT]
 Warning that the European Union's declaration will be interpreted by Colombo as providing tacit support to its policies and therefore will likely harden Colombo's views and approach to the peace process, Political Head of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, S. P. Thamilchelvan, told TamilNet Wednesday that the announced restriction on receiving LTTE delegations in EU countries, has ruined the trust Tamil people had in the EU, and has caused irreparable damage to prospects for peace.
Full story >>
[TamilNet, Monday, 26 September 2005, 14:53 GMT]
A sweeping investigation into the Sri Lankan government’s use of international tsunami-related aid has found widespread misappropriation of funds and bureaucratic incompetence, an interim report released this week says.
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[TamilNet, Monday, 19 September 2005, 05:40 GMT]
Even as his party leader and incumbent President Chandrika Kumaratunga wrapped herself in the tenets of liberalism whilst addressing the United Nations last week, her party's candidate for her succession, Mahinda Rajapakse, continued to tread an unabashedly Sinhala ultra-nationalist platform at home.
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[TamilNet, Saturday, 17 September 2005, 14:39 GMT]
"The LTTE is still ready for immediate talks on the implementation of the CFA, outside the island," reiterated Mr. S. P. Thamilchelvan, Political Head of the LTTE, in an exclusive interview to the TamilNet on Friday. "We see a lot of contradictions in the speeches of Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga, made abroad and in the south. The fact is the Tamil people have lost faith in Kumaratunga's statements, speeches and promises. It is high time the international community takes this into consideration," said LTTE's political head.
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[TamilNet, Wednesday, 07 September 2005, 09:30 GMT]
 "We have established a new division in our Police Force to focus on the welfare of Women and children in the NorthEast. This division will play a visible role in ensuring that the rights of women and children are protected, and will augment and operate at the same level to the existing five divisions under my leadership," said Tamileelam Chief of Police, Mr Nadesan when TamilNet talked to him on the progress of law and order enforcement in the NorthEast.
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[TamilNet, Monday, 05 September 2005, 11:26 GMT]
 Vijeyaratnam Balendrarasa (47), a fisherman from Thondamannar, a coastal village located 20km northeast of Jaffna town, only wanted to work hard and stand on his own. He borrowed, invested in a boat and nets, and hoped his son would continue to prosper in his trade. Balendrarasa was slowly coming to terms with death of his eldest daughter killed by a Sri Lanka Army (SLA) shell in 1996, when tragedy struck again. On December 26, the tsunami consumed his son, Balendran (17), and a 46-year relative of his, the only two in Thondamannar to die that day.
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[TamilNet, Saturday, 13 August 2005, 00:29 GMT]
 Mr Lakshman Kadirgamar, Sri Lanka's Minister of Foreign Affairs and a close confidante of Sri Lanka's President Ms Chandrika Kumaratunge, was shot Friday night by a sniper near his residence and later succumbed to his injuries. During his 1994-2001 tenure as foreign minister in People's Alliance (PA) government, he was widely credited for his relentless campaign in foreign capitals to brand the Liberation Tigers as a terrorist organization and to ban the LTTE. Mr Kadirgamar was held in high esteem by most of the South for his vehement opposition to separatism and for his passionate defense of the sovereignty of Sri Lanka. Mr Kadirgamar never held an elected office.
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[TamilNet, Sunday, 07 August 2005, 11:36 GMT]
 The Social Development Centre (SDC) headquartered in Killinochchi, has drawn up plans to rebuild the war-destroyed Kaddaiparichchan village in the Muttur east in the Trincomalee district, officials said. SDC has sought the assistance of non-governmental organizations to rebuild the village currently in an abandoned state with uncleared mines, shrub jungles covering residential areas which once flourished with coconut trees and banana cultivation with villagers gainfully employed in animal husbandry and other cottage industries.
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[TamilNet, Saturday, 30 July 2005, 18:45 GMT]
 What are the US government’s strategic interests in Sri Lanka? If the US has specific strategic interests in the island, then what are the means and modes by which it was and is securing them? Dharmaretnam Sivaram, popular military analyst and senior editor at TamilNet was working on this feature when he was abducted and killed on 28 April 2005.
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[TamilNet, Sunday, 03 July 2005, 15:24 GMT]
 The Supreme Court, the most visible institution of the judicial branch, often plays a pivotal role in promoting trust in the government in a polarized society. Fundamental to the effective functioning of a supreme court is a secular constitution which protects minority rights, and a nation’s executive and legislative branches which practice good governance to enact laws benefiting the nation. Debates on new appointments to US Supreme Court and its recent controversial rulings render an opportunity to look at the functioning of the United States' “final arbiter of the law” to that of Sri Lanka’s.
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[TamilNet, Wednesday, 29 June 2005, 22:44 GMT]
 Warning that failure of P-TOMS will lead to a breakdown in CFA and possible return to war, Robert C. Oberst, Professor of Political Science at Nebraska Wesleyan University, said on the Muslim question, "Although the way in which the P-TOMS was created is an insult to the Muslim community, the actual document appears to enhance their power," when TamilNet asked for his views on the aid deal signed between the Government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers.
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[TamilNet, Friday, 17 June 2005, 00:05 GMT]
Hailing the international donor community’s insistence on a joint mechanism for tsunami aid, the Tamil Guardian newspaper this week said this had forced Sri Lanka's President Chandrika Kumaratunga to face down powerful Buddhist clergy and Sinhala ultranationalists. “This breach in Buddhist hegemony must be widened … if peace and, in particular, ethnic reconciliation is to be possible in Sri Lanka,” the paper argued in its latest editorial.
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[TamilNet, Thursday, 16 June 2005, 17:38 GMT]
 Despite the exit of Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), a key Parliamentary ally, the stability of Sri Lanka's President Ms Chandrika Kumaratunga’s government is assured, not because of its inherent strength, but because none of the other parties want an election at this juncture, Jaffna's Uthayan newspaper argued in its editorial Thursday.
Full story >>
[TamilNet, Sunday, 12 June 2005, 09:49 GMT]
In an Opinion column that appeared in Colombo weekly, Midweek Mirror of Wednesday, January 15, 1998, popular journalist and military analyst, late Dharmaretnam Sivaram wrote on the rising popularity of the Sinhala Nationalist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) among the masses of Sinhala South and of JVP's imminent rise to be a strong contender as a ruling party in the democratic electoral politics of Sri Lanka. This feature reproduces the full text of the article.
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[TamilNet, Sunday, 12 June 2005, 05:10 GMT]
 Mr E Thambiah, an opponent of the Upper Kotmale hydropower scheme and organizer of People's Campaign Against Upper Kotmale Project (PCAUKP), a countrywide grassroots organization with members from all communities, recently spoke to TamilNet on the reasons for their campaign to stop the project. The Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB), however, believes that the project is necessary to fuel economic growth of Sri Lanka.
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[TamilNet, Tuesday, 07 June 2005, 14:27 GMT]
Leaders of Sri Lanka’s ultra-nationalist Janatha Vimukthi Perumana (JVP) wound up a ten day visit to Japan last week, having had a strong of meetings with top officials, former prime ministers and no less than four conferences with Yasushi Akashi, Japan’s Peace Envoy to Sri Lanka, sources said. JVP leader Somawanse Amarasinghe and his delegation were invited to Japan with a view to persuading them to cease their resistance to the internationally-backed peace process in Sri Lanka, but, the diplomatic initiative failed, as the party remains adamantly opposed to the joint mechanism, the sources said.
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[TamilNet, Friday, 03 June 2005, 01:02 GMT]
The veteran intelligence officer, Lieutenant Colonel Nizam Muthaliff, was a central figure in the atrocity-punctuated paramilitary aspects of the counter-insurgency campaign against the LTTE in the early nineties then had a critical role in the deep penetration attacks on LTTE commanders and officials, the Tamil Guardian reported Wednesday.
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[TamilNet, Thursday, 02 June 2005, 14:44 GMT]
President Chandrika Kumaratunga on Wednesday denied claims that her government was mishandling billions of dollars donated by the international community to help Sri Lanka recover from December's devastating tsunami, press reports said. Meanwhile Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar denied that unwieldy bureaucracy and a lack of professionalism was to blame for the delays in post tsunami relief.
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[TamilNet, Monday, 30 May 2005, 00:11 GMT]
 The article on the use of airpower in Eelam conflict written by late Dharmeratnam Sivaram that appeared in the 19 May 1991 issue of the Island gains added significance in view of recent controversy over Liberation Tigers’ alleged possession of Czech made Zlin type Z-143 aircraft. Full text of the article is reproduced in this feature.
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[TamilNet, Wednesday, 25 May 2005, 04:57 GMT]
Saying that ongoing killings and abductions throughout Sri Lanka have created “a climate of fear among Tamils across the country,” Human Rights Watch (HRW) Tuesday called for “the establishment of an independent commission of inquiry into the killings and abductions in order to identify those responsible and recommend measures to end the abuses.”
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[TamilNet, Tuesday, 24 May 2005, 10:39 GMT]
 "The forces who opposed negotiations with the LTTE are forces committed tocontinuing the present structure of governance in this country, who want a unitary structure of government to continue, who want majority hegemony to continue. If these forces succeed, the peace process must inevitably collapse with all its horrendous consequences," said Mr.R.Sampanthan, parliamentary group leader of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), in a recent one-day debate on the current state of the peace process, parliamentary sources said.
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[TamilNet, Sunday, 22 May 2005, 14:02 GMT]
The abrupt climb down by the Janatha Vimukthi Perumana (JVP) over its threat to exit President Chandrika Kumaratunga’s coalition government if it signed a joint mechanism with the Tamil Tigers was prompted by unofficial threats of JVP leaders being arrested on the basis of recently gathered evidence about their activities, The Sunday Leader newspaper said this week.
Full story >>
[TamilNet, Sunday, 22 May 2005, 13:59 GMT]
In the 14th March 1990 issue of Sri Lanka's English daily, Island International, popular journalist and military analyst, late Dharmeratnam Sivaram, provided insight into how the concept of Eelam in its various interpretations were adopted or dismantled as the basis of the armed struggle of different Tamil liberation movements.
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[TamilNet, Friday, 20 May 2005, 00:34 GMT]
 In an article in the Colombo-based Tamil daily, Virakesari, on March 27, 2005, Dharmaretnam Sivaram, analyzed the history of Sri Lanka's defense forces and argued that from the very beginning, the Sri Lankan forces' mission was to confront internal crises that the country's ruling elite feared as grave threats, without the strategic thinking required for conventional warfare or to confront external threats.
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[TamilNet, Thursday, 19 May 2005, 12:12 GMT]
Sri Lanka's President Chandrika Kumaratunga has invited two members of her ruling United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) - the Janatha Vimukthi Perumana (JVP) and Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC) - for talks at her official residence Thursday, the Daily Mirror newspaper reported. The meeting comes as the JVP seemed to back away from its confrontationist course with President Kumaratunga on thedonor-backed notion of sharing aid with the LTTE and amid speculation the matter had created a rift within the Marxist-cum-ultranationalist party.
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[TamilNet, Wednesday, 18 May 2005, 23:30 GMT]
Piqued by President Chandrika Kumaratunga’s criticism of its vehement opposition to sharing aid with the Liberation Tigers, yet wary of being portrayed as the prime obstacle to desperately needed international assistance, the ultra-nationalist Janatha Vimukthi Perumana (JVP) Wednesday put a brave face on its humiliation Monday. In a stark departure from its trademark fiery rhetoric, the Marxist party’s politburo was muted, conciliatory and almost philosophical.
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[TamilNet, Tuesday, 17 May 2005, 16:19 GMT]
International donors wrapped up a key conference for Sri Lanka pledging $3bn in aid, but stressing the importance of progress in resolving the island’s protracted ethnic conflict to pave the way for its disbursement, press reports and officials said. The onus is on Sri Lanka’s President Chandrika Kumaratunga, who has promised donors she would overcome Sinhala nationalist opposition to negotiate and sign a joint mechanism with the LTTE, to deliver. But amid escalating Sinhala right wing pressure, Tamil optimism is tempered by deep sceptism
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[TamilNet, Friday, 13 May 2005, 13:26 GMT]
The serious lack of normalcy in the Tamil areas due to continuing military occupation and restrictions on civilians’ livelihoods, even three years after the mutual ceasefire agreement was signed, is leading to severe frustrations amongst the people, the head of the Liberation Tiger’s political wing, Mr. S. P. Thamilchelvan told Norwegian diplomats Friday. The extraordinary focus on a post-tsunami aid management mechanism is masking the severity of the obstructions to rehabilitation work and the day-to-day difficulties faced by ordinary people, Mr. Thamilchelvan told Norwegian Ambassador to Sri Lanka, Mr. Hans Brattskar, when they met in Kilinochchi.
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[TamilNet, Friday, 13 May 2005, 11:46 GMT]
Liberation Tigers' demand for an independent administrative arrangement and funds to rehabilitate and rebuild the infrastructure of the Tamil homeland is rooted on the fact that for the past 56 years the Sinhala Nation has resolutely exercised its monopoly power on island's national wealth and refused to accept Tamil's right to a fair share of the wealth, argues late Dharmeratnam Sivaram, in a column which appeared in Virakesari of 21 November 2004. This feature provides an English translation.
Full story >>
[TamilNet, Thursday, 12 May 2005, 13:46 GMT]
 Leaders of civil society organisations calling for a peaceful solution to Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict have received death threats from an extreme Sinhala nationalist group calling itself ‘Theraputtabhaya force.’ The letter, which claimed responsibility for the murder of journalist Sivaram Dharmeratnam, says that all traitors should be ready to become "fertiliser for the motherland" if they continue to betray it.
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[TamilNet, Monday, 09 May 2005, 18:20 GMT]
As the proposed joint mechanism for aid distribution urged by international donors between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers remains mired in Sinhala political manoeuvring, deep scepticism has replaced early optimism amongst the Tamils. More ominously, a belief is rapidly taking root that Colombo is playing for time and keeping the Northeast in the economic and social doldrums whilst developing the Sri Lankan military for a new war.
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[TamilNet, Monday, 09 May 2005, 15:51 GMT]
The joint mechanism between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers called for by international aid donors has become the centre of political manoeuvres by the main Sinhala parties, in whose zero-sum calculations, international aid has a critical role to play.
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[TamilNet, Saturday, 07 May 2005, 18:24 GMT]
 The lack of a quorum in Sri Lanka’s Parliament and the subsequent lacklustre debate when the abduction and brutal murder of Tamil political columnist and military analyst, Dharmeratnam Sivaram, was taken up Friday dismayed journalists who three days earlier had taken to the streets in a major protest over the brazen killing in Colombo.
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[TamilNet, Thursday, 05 May 2005, 00:02 GMT]
In April last year, the world witnessed the prowess, fighting spirit and the commitment of the Jeyanthan Brigade which, by executing in Batticaloa soil “the right operation at the right time and the right place, triumphed against betrayal and reclaimed our soil, our people and our cadre," said LTTE leader, Mr. Vellupillai Pirapaharan in a congratulatory message sent to the fighting unit which celebrated the 12th anniversary of its formation on Wednesday.
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[TamilNet, Sunday, 01 May 2005, 15:08 GMT]
 Sri Lanka is to buy several powerful warships from Britain, Serbia and Uruguay, the Sunday Times reported this week. From Britain, the SLN is keen to buy warships to support major amphibious assaults on coastal targets. The SLN is also to buy two nearly 100-metre long Russian built missile frigates from Serbia and five fast gunboats from Uruguay. “What is known quite clearly is that millions of dollars are to be spent for military procurements,” the Sunday Times’ defence correspondent, Iqbal Athas, writes. “Without the glare of publicity, behind-the-scene manoeuvres to secure some big deals are under way.”
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[TamilNet, Friday, 29 April 2005, 21:11 GMT]
Mark Whitaker, an associate professor of anthropology at the University of South Carolina, Aiken, U.S.A, is completing an intellectual biography of Dharmeratnam Sivaram’s life and work in a book entitled “Learning Politics from Sivaram.” Prof. Whitaker
summarizes Sivaram’s life and work in this feature.
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[TamilNet, Wednesday, 20 April 2005, 14:26 GMT]
 The cease fire agreement between the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) and the Liberation Tigers was greeted eagerly by the people of Batticaloa because it held out the hope that their daily lives would be spared of the tensions, fears, anxieties, stress and trauma which they suffered for two long decades of war. They were glad that they could lead normal lives again. Today the cease fire’s promise rings increasingly hollow to them as the Sri Lankan armed forces reintroduce war era measures, which are tinged indelibly with bitter memories of a past the people of Batticaloa wanted to put behind so that they could start their lives anew.
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[TamilNet, Wednesday, 06 April 2005, 18:28 GMT]
 “We should spit on NGOs and stop them from walking on our streets. Donor countries and their NGO agents are holding this country to ransom, telling the government to set up a joint Tsunami relief mechanism with the LTTE. It is something that can be done through the Sri Lankan state machinery. There is no need for a joint mechanism”, said Mr. Wimal Weerawansa, the powerful propaganda secretary of Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), speaking to a packed audience in Maharagama, an outer suburb of Colombo, at a meeting Wednesday to ‘expose the NGO Mafia that is against the land and the country’.
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[TamilNet, Sunday, 03 April 2005, 21:01 GMT]
 A photographic exhibition highlighting the suffering of survivors in Mullaithivu of the devastation wrought by the December 26 tsunami has opened in London. Internationally renowned photographer Carlos Reyes-Manzo’s exhibition titled ‘Tender Shoots of Mullaithivu’ was formally launched at the famous bookshop, Foyles, last Thursday. The exhibition, which is named after Senthalir orphanage in Mullaithivu, which Mr. Reyes-Manzo visited in January, focuses on the plight of people in areas around Mullaitivu and comprises black and white photographs depicting the destruction wrought on coastal villages and portraits of survivors, all taken in his characteristic style.
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[TamilNet, Wednesday, 23 March 2005, 13:19 GMT]
 Throwing his weight fully behind the radical Sinhala nationalistic Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), a major coalition in the ruling United People's Freedom Alliance government, Sri Lanka's Foreign Minister, Lakshman Kadirgamar, in a live television interview with the BBC on Tuesday said that the JVP is for the negotiated political settlement with the LTTE and assured that it would never quit the ruling coalition in this regard.
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[TamilNet, Wednesday, 23 March 2005, 12:23 GMT]
 Opposition fears that President Chandrika Kumaratunga is making serious moves to hold on to the reins of power were further exacerbated when thousands of posters calling for the immediate abolition the country’s executive Presidential system appeared in many part of the island’s capital and suburbs this week. The purple coloured posters were in the name of a nebulous organization called ‘People’s Movement for Democracy’. Sri Lanka’s main opposition United National Party (UNP) says President Kumaratunga is planning to change the constitution to illegally perpetuate herself in power.
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[TamilNet, Saturday, 05 March 2005, 18:47 GMT]
 The question of child soldiers continues to vex strained relations between the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) and the Liberation Tigers. That the matter has been raised against the Tigers by the UN and other rights organizations is considered by Colombo as a feather in its foreign policy cap. "The Government of Sri Lanka is more interested in cynically exploiting the child soldiers issue for its black propaganda war against us than in finding a political solution to the conflict", said Mr. S. P . Thamilchelvan in an interview with the TamilNet this week. He said there were serious errors in the UNICEF report on child recruitment by the LTTE.
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[TamilNet, Wednesday, 02 March 2005, 16:59 GMT]
 Sinhala nationalists Wednesday declared 2 March as national ‘Anti-neo-colonialism Day’ at a rally to mark to commemorate Ven. Wariyapola Sumangala, the Buddhist monk who pulled down the Union Jack and hoisted the Sinhala lion flag 190 years ago. A widely publicized rally to mark the day was organized in Colombo by Patriotic National Movement (PNM), an alliance of Sinhala nationalists formed and backed by President Chandrika Kumaratunga’s main coalition ally, Janatha Vimukthi Permamuna (JVP).
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[TamilNet, Wednesday, 02 March 2005, 00:48 GMT]
 In camps off the North-East coast of Sri Lanka, over 300,000 people drink water from bowsers brought in from kilometres away. Dependant on an unsustainable water source, they are unaware of the NGOs' struggle with Sri Lanka's bureacracy and fight against Government's mechanisms to throttle relief reaching NorthEast. Nor are the refugees aware of the heavy duties paid to clear high-tech water filtration systems and relief supplies that would otherwise either collect dust in a customs warehouse or distributed to other areas at the fancies of Sri Lanka's Social Services Ministry officials.
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[TamilNet, Monday, 07 February 2005, 03:04 GMT]
 “We appealed to the President, we appealed to the Special Task Force, we wrote to the Government Agent and we wrote to several ministers in the government. We pleaded with all of them to find us suitable land to restart our lives. We explained to them why we wanted to leave the camp for Tsunami refugees in Akkaraipattu. But no one responded. That’s why we packed our belongings and came here when we heard of this opportunity”, Ms. Pathmanathan Seetha, told TamilNet, explaining her decision to move to Kavudaapuddi, a mound overlooking the lagoon behind her Tsunami destroyed village on Sri Lanka’s remote southeast coast.
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[TamilNet, Tuesday, 01 February 2005, 10:50 GMT]
 Pasikudah was a tourist’s paradise. Clear blue waters and white sands of the bay attracted thousands. War completely ruined the booming tourist industry here in the mid eighties. The beautiful beach, dotted with the bombed out shells of star class hotels, became a no go zone. Today the beach has vanished, ripped by the giant Boxing Day waves. The hamlet that gave its name to the area is a heap of rubble and debris. There is no warning about mines from destroyed defenses of the Sri Lanka army garrison bordering Pasikudah village.
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[TamilNet, Thursday, 27 January 2005, 15:08 GMT]
 "The government’s treasury is brimming with Tsunami aid money. Here only our eyes brim with tears. The government has not given us anything in aid. We are living mostly on handouts by NGOs and others who come to see the plight of this place", M.L.M Haniffa, a farmer in Ullai, considered one of the ten best surfing spots in the world, told TamilNet Wednesday. The forty eight year old Muslim farmer who lost his wife, daughter and two sons, lives alone in an open tent near the ruins of what once a popular beach front guesthouse in Ullai – Hotel Tsunami.
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[TamilNet, Tuesday, 25 January 2005, 10:58 GMT]
 Komari is a village settled mostly by families that came to work at a British Royal Air Force runway on Sri Lanka’s remote southeastern coast during World War II. It is a narrow but densely populated promontory sandwiched between a lagoon and the sea. During the Eelam Wars (1983-2002), Komari was ruthlessly controlled like an open prison by the Special Task Force (STF), the elite counter insurgency wing of the Sri Lankan armed forces. Last month the place was literally flattened by the Tsunami. The STF camp in Komari’s midst is now a heap of rubble. “Will we ever get permanent homes?” is the fear echoed by many refugees here who spoke to TamilNet Tuesday.
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[TamilNet, Monday, 24 January 2005, 04:48 GMT]
 “We came here when we heard that people in the camps needed some medical assistance. We started setting up a medical facility here today. Our team can see about three hundred patients a day depending on the availability of Tamil interpreters”, Captain Scott Malcom of the Canadian army told TamilNet Sunday, explaining their mission in Tsunami devastated Pandiruppu, a densely populated town by the coast 38 kilometres south of Batticaloa. The Canadian military is supplying drinking water and health services to some villages devastated by the Tsunami on the southeastern coast of Sri Lanka which are yet to see any tangible aid from Colombo.
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[TamilNet, Sunday, 23 January 2005, 03:03 GMT]
 Plan drawn up as a blueprint for post-tsunami development by the “Task force to Rebuild the Nation” (TAFREN), one of the three committees comprising the Center for National Operations (CNO) set up by Sri Lanka’s President Chandrika Kumaratunge, announced Monday, is assailed as being immoral, hastily produced, too centralized and conceived without adequate consultation with organizations whose support is vital for the plan's successful execution.
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[TamilNet, Friday, 21 January 2005, 06:45 GMT]
 "When we lose cadres in battles we strengthen our will to hit back at the enemy. The Tsunami losses are different, especially the loss of children has shaken us deeply. I have seen mothers carrying dead babies in their hands who refuse to accept that they are dead. They continued to kiss and caress them as if they were alive. This has been a difficult time for us," said Ms. Thamilini, the head of the LTTE’s women political wing talking to TamilNet correspondent in Amparai after the Tsunami disaster.
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[TamilNet, Thursday, 13 January 2005, 00:53 GMT]
 Professor V. Nithyanantham of the Dept. of Economics, Jaffna University, talking to TamilNet on the socio-economic setting in NorthEast and problems facing the residents in the post Tsunami period, said that planners should adopt a macro-economic approach to reconstruction taking into account relevant humanitarian and social factors.
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[TamilNet, Monday, 10 January 2005, 03:30 GMT]
According to the US Geological Survey more than three million earthquakes occur every year. That is, 8.000 quakes a day or one every 11 seconds. But researchers still debate on what causes earthquakes. For the last 30 years the plate tectonics theory was predominant but recently it has been challenged by a new Global Wrench Tectonics theory created by the Norwegian professor Karsten M. Storetvedt. According to his theory earthquakes are caused by gas explosions and can happen anywhere, not only along the plate borders, as suggested by earlier theories.
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[TamilNet, Sunday, 09 January 2005, 11:36 GMT]
 The Sri Lankan government’s insensitive and ineffectual relief efforts in the Northeast in the wake of the Asian tsunami disaster has reinforced the need for an interim administration for the region as demanded by its residents, Tamil parliamentarians argued Sunday.
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[TamilNet, Saturday, 08 January 2005, 15:45 GMT]
 What used to be Navalady village is today an earthen stage containing the corpses of the villagers the sea claimed on Boxing Day as it swept into the land. And the villagers who remain struggle to cope with the shock, distress and pain of the effects of that day. They speak of one fisherman, Ravi, who saved at least a hundred people. And they remember the families they lost in minutes.
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[TamilNet, Friday, 07 January 2005, 20:19 GMT]
 “To the ancient Tamil world natural calamities like the tsunami that hit the east coast on 26 December 2004 is not unknown,” says professor A.Shanmugathas, head of the department of Tamil, Jaffna University. The Sangam Literature, which is more than 2000 years old, makes reference to similar natural catastrophes (perooly) that have affected the Tamil speaking world - spreading from Cape Comarin in the South to the Vindian ranges in the North. "The history records it that tidal destruction (Kadatkol) has occurred from time to time and these facts are established by the archeological excavations. They are not imaginary accounts," he adds. This is supported by modern scientific theories.
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[TamilNet, Wednesday, 05 January 2005, 05:15 GMT]
 Speaking to TamilNet after visiting Batticaloa and Ampara Districts, Tamil National Alliance, Jaffna District MP Mr.Selvarajah Gajendran said: "LTTE has the capability to build bridges and lay roads. I request the international community to provide them with equipment and materials through NGOs so that recovery can be swift."
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[TamilNet, Sunday, 02 January 2005, 07:40 GMT]
 The Sunday Tsunami has left the main road network of the east and southeast coast of Sri Lanka in tatters, leaving many areas still marooned and hindering relief and rescue work, Col. Bhanu, a senior commander of the Liberation Tigers who is directing urgent humanitarian operations in the region, told TamilNet Saturday. He deplored that helicopters are being used to show Sri Lankan government leaders the disaster in the east and to take photos.
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[TamilNet, Sunday, 02 January 2005, 07:36 GMT]
 “Our leader has instructed me to involve all our fighters, medical corps, vehicles, engineering units and other resources in relief and rescue operations in the Batticaloa- Amparai district. He has sent a large number of troops from the north with supplies for this work. The Malathy Infantry Regiment has also arrived along with head of our women’s wing, Ms. Thamilini, and deputy head of political division for Jaffna, Mr. Semmanan, to help Tsunami affected people in this region and alleviate their suffering”, said Col. Bhanu, a senior military officer of the Liberation Tigers who is the overall commander for Batticaloa-Amparai District, in an exclusive interview to TamilNet.
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